It’s Not Religion, Its People

In a simple dictionary definition, religion means the belief in and worship of superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. It’s a system of faith and worship pursued with great devotion by practitioners.

Wikipedia’s definition explains religion broadly as a social-cultural system of designated behaviours and practices, morals, sanctified places, prophecies or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.

We all have something we believe in. Take me for example, I am a Christian, I believe in God, his son and the holy spirit. I read the bible as a spiritual guide and attend church every Sundays to understand God’s ways and eventually make heaven when i die. Each time I face a challenge, i pray to God for mercy and guidance and when I overcome, I thank him.

Your religions can be anything, science, traditional religion, your refrigerator, money, the sky, the earth, or the seas if you believe it’s sacred histories and narratives- gives meaning to life, explains the origin of life, the universe, and other things.

Conversely, there are individuals who do not identify with any particular religion, they are referred to as atheists and agnostics.

So, what’s wrong it?

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with what you chose to believe in as long as it obeys these four principles.

See no evil

Do no evil

Hear no evil

Say no evil

What’s wrong is in fact, people. People’s selfish interests to translate, interpret, bias, communicate and bend religious scriptures for self-benefit, personal gains and control over other practitioners, people who mix religion with conservative societal views- are the problem. This behavioural pattern leads back to the introduction of Christianity to West Africa.

While Christianity has brought undoubted benefits, it has also harmed the traditional way of life. They gave to the converts a new religious faith which they consider is superior to the traditional religions and did pioneering work in introducing new crafts, industries, Western education and modern health services. They also abolished the killing of twins and human sacrifice but the bias can be found when the Christian missionaries, Instead of adapting the teachings and practices of the ‘new’ religion to suit indigenous values, as it did when the same Christian religion adopted Greek, Roman, German and Anglo-Saxon native practices, they condemned whatever we Africans held as traditions.

The education provided in schools in the early days played emphasis on the superiority of western culture. Textbooks were heavily biased towards western ideas and values. History books tended to exaggerate in achievements of Europeans, making no reference to African’s own great past. This contradicts the bible, the Christian’s book of life, where it said everyone is equal in the eyes of God.

Further, Modern Christianity is filled with people who are religious but have conservative views. For example when a religious leader preaches about living your best life but believes women shouldn’t be educated or run for political positions.

Or discussing marriage in the Christian way with young ladies but encouraging my younger sister who is 15 to get married in year two when she’d be 17. Isn’t that child marriage? Isn’t it illegal? Isn’t that a violation of human rights and a form of violence against girls?

or that pastors who claimed he saw in a vision where I became a cultist, then told my mother to pay the sum of N5,000 to pray so i would change my mind and back out. Isn’t that daylight robbery? Isn’t that abusing the title ‘pastor’?

Some, who we listen to as religious leader are badly behaved, educated wrongly. These bad eggs affect the amazing and wonderful ones out there and the effect is a narrative that all religious leaders are bad same way foreigners believes everyone from Nigeria is a Yahoo boy or girl which isn’t true.

The Christian bible condemns homosexuality and it’s illegal in Nigerian laws. Also, I am not a fan of same-sex sexual relationship but someone’s sexual preference is between him and his God or whatever he believes in. Discriminating and violating someone’s human rights because your own religion condemns their sexual orientation is wrong. The Bible does not encourage harm, it’s people who harm people.

Religion itself is not the problem because they serve as a guide for humanity. People who don’t understand religious teaching and never care to learn about it but would go ahead and misinterpret them to enrich themselves or to gain superiority over others- are the problem.

Listening and studying your religious practices are one of the many ways to give meaning to life but I’d advice you consume these teachings intentionally and not follow your religious leader but the scriptures itself.